To give you an idea where accordion manufacturies
are located, here´s a Google earth photo of Europe.

On a recent visit to
Trossingen, I tried to capture a long gone era. Luck had it
that many of the old buildings are still standing, unused &
unaltered, telling the story of what was once the largest manufacturer
of musical instruments. A few years ago, Hohner moved to a new
building in the industrial area of Trossingen.

In that part of the factory, still
in its original condition, the wooden body accordions like the
Corona were produced.

Time stands still in this area.

This is industrial architecture of the
twenties at its best.

Time stands still as I meditate
the Hohner blues

Everything in the old factory had style
even the lamps.

Imagine thousands of Coronas
being produced here.

The entrance to the wooden accordion
production. Now a tree makes its home there.

The townhall of Trossingen

The Hohner Academy

Academy from the rear, connected
to the factory

A telephone list from the seventies
shows the names of workers, who otherwise remain nameless.

The directors, of the above Matth.
Hohner jun. is still alive

At Hohner, everyone remained nameless,
with the exception of Venanzio Morino & Giovanni Gola. These
Italian accordion builders designed the top models of the Hohner
line.

The Corona is at the bottom of the
bottom of the bottom of the line, so it was hard to get to the
bottom of who designed it. As far as I could figure out, Elias
Messner, son of Frank Hohner, was the director of the wooden
accordion department, when the Corona was designed in the fifties.

The accordion production "Akkordeonfertigung"
took place in two departments, wooden "Holzbauweise"
& metal "Metallbauweise".

At the time of the list above, M.
Ehler was the chief of "Akkordeonanfertigung", Waldemar
Messner was head of the "Holzbauweise" & Hans
Götz, head of the "Metallbauweise". Head of reed
production, "Stimmplattenherstellung" was Herbert
Kraft.

Back to the fifties: I asked Ernst
Strom (born 1920), who worked in the design department, who
could have designed the Corona. And, he told me that after the
war, Hans Rappold (1889-1975) of Stuttgart was an important
designer in the accordion department.

It proved to be difficult to get to
the origin of the Corona.

During my time in Trossingen, I talked
to Matthias Hohner jun.,

to the Haigis family (they worked
for Hohner in Argentina),

to Eckart Kretschmann (he worked for
Hohner in Chile),

to Helmut Ulrich, Jakob Schuler, Kurt
Koch, Ernst Strom,

but none of them could name the "inventor"
of the Corona.

It looks as if the Corona was designed
by Elias Messner, and that Hans Rappold was responsible for
the layout.

During my conversations
in Trossingen one name always popped up, that of Elias Messner.

The old building

The entrance to the "Hohner
Areal"

The gate with a rusty accordion
player emblem

The old rugged emblem

The power house

The steam engine made by manufacturer
Borsig

Jakob Schuler, the oldest Hohner
worker in Trossingen. Born in 1911, he started to work at Hohner in
1924 and stayed for 52 years. He first worked in the mouth harp production
and later became a specialist in register adjustment. He knew Venanzzio
Morino and Giovanni Gola personally.

This is Jakob Schuler`s home.
At the time of my visit in Trossingen
most of the houses had been hit by a heavy weather, with ice as big
as tennis balls which destroyed nearly all roofs in Trossingen.

The villa of Hohner founder Matthias
Hohner

The "wintergarten"

Across from the old factory building

A look through the floral Jugendstil
window of the villa

This building shows what a revolutionary
mind the founder, Mr. Matthias Hohner, even as an old man was. A building
like this in rural Trossingen wasquite a novelty. The ornamental style
of "Jugendstil" was as avantgarde as you could get.

This villa is one of the best
examples of Jugendstil

Looking down from Hohner`s villa
over to his factory.

Jugendstil at its best. Herr
Hohner really had style

I stayed at Hotel Schoch, run by the
Horakh family - every Wednesday at 8 pm there´s a roundtable.

Eberhardtstrasse 20, 78647 Trossingen,
Germany

0049 7425 940020 Fax 9400255

Kurt Koch started to work at Hohner
in 1946. He worked in the metal style department of the factory.
The best known metal body accordion is the "Atlantic".
Now he leads visitors through the Harmonika Museum.